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Flux of Skin

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by Kris Austen Radcliffe




  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Flux of Skin

  Fate - Fire - Shifter - Dragon Book Two

  Kris Austen Radcliffe

  Copyright 2017 Kris Austen Radcliffe

  All rights reserved.

  Published by

  Six Talon Sign Fantasy & Futuristic Romance

  Edited by Annetta Ribken

  Copyedited by Terry Koch and Juli Lilly

  Cover designed by Lou Harper

  Series dragon design and art by Christina Rausch

  Plus a special thanks to my Proofing Crew.

  Copyright notice: All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidences are used factitiously. All representations of real locales, programs, or services are factitious accounts of the environments and services described. Any resemblances characters, places, or events have to actual people, living or dead, business, establishments, events, or locales is entirely unintended and coincidental.

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  For requests, please e-mail: publisher@sixtalonsign.com.

  Third electronic edition, September 2017

  Updated and reformatted

  version 8.25.2017

  ISBN: 978-1-939730-48-0

  Contents

  Flux of Skin

  Get Free Books

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Fifth of Blood

  Fifth of Blood

  The World of

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  The Worlds of

  About the Author

  Flux of Skin

  Fate - Fire - Shifter - Dragon

  Kris Austen Radcliffe

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  Fate - Fire - Shifter - Dragon

  The Series

  Games of Fate

  Flux of Skin

  Fifth of Blood

  Bonds Broken & Silent

  All But Human

  Men and Beasts

  The Burning World

  Chapter One

  Bumps and divots and tactile non sequiturs wrenched across Ladon’s abdomen. The RV bounced. Reflections of Dragon’s patterns whirled across the ceiling and only added to his unease.

  A damned dream had turned his gut into a cauldron.

  He rubbed his midsection. They’d be home soon. The Jani Fates might have put them through hell—he could think of a thousand safer ways to activate his beloved Rysa’s new Shifter healer abilities than the fight they’d just endured in Salt Lake City—but that was done. In less than four hours he’d be in his own bed, under the solidity of the cave’s dome with his woman where she should be—pressed against his side and free of her family’s torture.

  He’d sleep off his wounds in comfort and peace, all his nightmares be damned.

  Yet a sour sense of foreboding grated at his insides. The fractured emotions of the dream still chafed his body raw.

  Rysa lay between him and Dragon, asleep again. He rolled against her back and snaked an arm around her waist. Gently, he splayed his fingers over her belly and laid his forehead against the nape of her neck.

  Her mist-under-the-moon scent calmed some of the dream’s aftereffects.

  Sighing, she rolled slightly, and her body unconsciously molded against his. He shifted to close the gap, and the sourness seeped away.

  This, with her, filled more holes in his long life than any other moment he’d experienced. Yet he couldn’t shake the thought that the dream’s menace was backwash from her Fate’s future-seer. Her abilities saw something bad coming, and through the connection they shared, so did he.

  Except it felt familiar. It felt like him. Twenty-three centuries he’d walked this earth and rolling dread only pierced his gut before the universe reduced his life to rubble.

  Dragon’s patterns flickered to warmer tones. Unease filtered through the river of energy Ladon shared with the beast—or it filtered f
rom him to Dragon. After over two millennia sharing a psychic connection, sometimes neither of them could tell to whom an emotion belonged.

  We are safe, the beast pushed into his mind. A slow ocean of disconnected patterns moved across the beast’s hide. You must not worry. Rysa will be distressed by your mood.

  Ladon willed his muscles to loosen. Even if his body screamed to pay attention, to keep his eyes open and his senses primed, she didn’t need to see his unease.

  She blinked and stretched, and a strand of her richly-toned hair fell across her eyes.

  The beast nuzzled her shoulder. Rysa yawned and wiped away sleep with the back of one hand while scratching Dragon’s jaw with the other.

  Ladon forced a grin as much to bury his discomfort as to mask it from his love. Even without her abilities to see past, present, and future, Rysa picked up more than she realized. The beast was correct—she’d sense his anxiety if he wasn’t careful.

  He stroked the stray hair from her forehead.

  “Hmm… Where are we?” The blanket bunched up between them when she scooted closer.

  Before they left Salt Lake City, they’d both changed into some of his brother-in-law Derek’s extra sweats. She now cuddled against Ladon’s side wearing a big-eared, big-eyed Russian cartoon character emblazoned across her chest. The t-shirt stretched tight between her perfect breasts.

  He’d never found a woman with such exquisite balance. One breast was slightly fuller than the other—just a fraction, not enough that a normal would notice—but her other had a small mole on the center top. When she held her arms out to him, it formed a line between her shoulder and her nipple and perfectly balanced the slight extra roundness of her other breast.

  He traced his finger over the cartoon character’s ear, gently circling the mole under the fabric.

  Her fingers traced the grooves of his bicep.

  Every inch of his skin, every muscle and every tendon, sighed under her touch. Four days they’d been together. Four days and his body only felt whole when she pressed herself against his side.

  “We’re almost to Rock Springs,” he whispered.

  Her fingers caressed his forearm. Her seers danced along the borders of his consciousness with the rhythm of her movements, both tender but solid, in a lovely and sure cadence.

  He let it flow over him. The music of her Fate abilities wove into the edges of his mind the way her fingers wove around his hand. He breathed under the completeness of her caress—mental and physical—soothed more than he should allow himself to be.

  He glided his lips over her brow, then down the bridge of her nose to land a gentle kiss on the tip. Another kiss followed, a sweet touch of his lips to hers. Her scent curled into him, but this close, a hint of something new added a deeper note to her bouquet: ‘Acceptance.’

  Rysa’s Shifter half had brought more than healer abilities—she had burgeoning close-range enthraller calling scents, as well. Scents he could only smell when he was within inches of her body. Scents made just for him. Scents that said she loved him.

  He could let his focus change. Concentrate on her skin and her touch and the wonders she shared with him. He could cover her with his body and kiss the sleepiness from her mouth. Give back to her all she’d given him and let everything else fall away.

  He nuzzled and nibbled her earlobe. The divots lessened as he pressed himself against her and he felt, for the first time since opening his eyes, that maybe he’d only had a bad dream. A reaction to what had happened, not what will. He lay now next to perfection. What bad could happen?

  She tickled the furrow between his abdomen and his hip and he squirmed. “Woman, you will be my end.” A rumble threatened to escape from his chest—his rolling dragon vibration that emanated from the spot below his heart. It had happened with other women, but never as loudly as it did with Rysa, and never as often.

  And she seemed to enjoy it. If they were quick, they’d be dressed again before Sister drove the RV into the all-night grocery in Rock Springs. He worked his hand up her thigh to the firm curve of her bottom.

  She grinned and her eyes twinkled, but she yawned and leaned her head against his shoulder. “You’re going to have to wait until I feel better.”

  He pulled back. That’s not what she’d said outside of Salt Lake City. She’d crawled on top of him, the activation of her Shifter half priming all her appetites, and rubbed against his groin until he couldn’t take it anymore and flipped her on her back.

  He pushed himself up on his elbow. Her skin felt hot beneath his hand. He hadn’t thought about it—she might take longer than other Shifters to come out of activation—but now he wondered. And she hadn’t asked for food since they’d left—not even an apple or a drink of water in the five hours they'd traveled.

  The dream’s dread resurfaced and scoured a new trench across his stomach.

  Behind Rysa, discordant patterns swirled across Dragon’s hide.

  Rysa rolled away. “I feel everything you two pulse back and forth between each other, you know.” She rubbed the beast’s snout. “I’m fine. I’m still activating, that’s all. Who knows what kind of Shifter I’ll be, huh? Since I’m an active Fate, too.” She grinned but only the corners of her mouth lifted. She didn’t believe her own words.

  How could he have missed this? He’d been so wrapped up in his own desires, so amazed by the newness of her Fate-Shifter combination, that he’d failed to consider the potential danger of a double activation.

  There were probably good reasons half-breeds were only activated as either Fate or Shifter. Probably very good reasons.

  Her skin had taken on the tone of ash. The fever hadn’t diminished and still flushed her face and neck, but a pallor had set over her cheeks and eyes.

  He touched her forehead. She felt warm yet clammy.

  “Ladon, I’m okay.” Her brows knitted and the corners of her mouth dropped down. She looked the way she did when she worried about him. “When my aunt gets here, she’ll take care of it. I’ll be all right.”

  She lied—fear sparked across their connection. Her aunt might be a class-one healer, but Rysa thought her double-activation was destroying her body. She was trying to conceal it from him and Dragon.

  “Rysa, if you’re hurting, don’t hide it. Don’t—”

  Dragon flattened his digits and retracted his talons. Dmitri says Lucinda de la Turris comes, Rysa, he signed in American Sign Language so she understood, one big eye level with Ladon’s face. He says she is a good healer and will help. He spoke to Derek, and they are cousins. Dmitri would not lie.

  The beast pulsed calm as his big hand returned to her hip. You are increasing her anxiety, Human.

  Ladon sat up. She’s sick. Dragon’s accusatory tone wasn’t helping.

  Rysa rolled onto her back, one palm on Ladon’s stomach and the other on Dragon’s snout. “Quit fretting! You’re both worse than my mother.” She rolled onto her front and closed her eyes.

  Dragon’s hide pulsed in his version of a frown and Ladon stared at Rysa’s back not understanding why she acted this way. It didn’t make sense. He would do whatever was necessary for her to be healthy. He’d go anywhere and acquire anything, even if he had to fight every Fate, Shifter, and Burner on the planet to do it.

  She knew that. She didn’t have to ask.

  “I’m serious.” Rysa buried her face in the pillow. “I’m not a doll. I won’t break.”

  “But—”

  She sat up in one swift, stiff motion. Her seers raked through the back of the RV, grating and dissonant and not at all as rhythmic and musical as they should be.

  Ladon squinted. No Fates’ seers had ever felt so harsh. Rysa’s had turned rasping and violent so fast the surprise of the change hit him harder than the new rawness spreading through his mind.

  The part of her she called her “nasty” jigged along their connection as if it danced on hot coals. He felt it, and almost saw it as a real, visceral extension of the woman he loved.

  Inside
Rysa, Fate and Shifter rubbed against each other and the sparks set her body on fire.

  The energy he and the beast shared collapsed into a tight stream. Every other time they’d contracted their energy around Rysa, calm settled her mind and pleasure eased her body. Her nasty would drink deep and order would right her world.

  But now, her breath hitched. A glaze clouded the moonlight of her irises and she blinked in a steady but unnatural cadence. “Put on your shirt.”

  Ladon nodded as he reached for a t-shirt. Her face had flattened as it did when she passed out—but that shouldn’t happen anymore.

  When she’d scooped Dragon’s talon out of the puddle in Salt Lake City, she’d realized the beast—or whatever metallic compounds made him shimmer—was her true talisman, not the burndust-infested chains. The talon seemed to make her feel safer, as if having such a large dose of concentrated Dragon on her body gave her extra confidence. So Ladon had bound it in duct tape and twine, to blunt its edge and hide its dragon-vanishing properties. Rysa now wore seven inches of talon as a curve of adhesive tied with a square knot at her nape, even though it was still obvious and would likely draw stares from normals.

 

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